


Advisor

by avulle



Series: Advisor [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-05-27 05:56:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6272506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avulle/pseuds/avulle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zuko goes to visit Mai in her aunt's flower shop, and asks her to return.</p>
<p>It goes about as well as you would expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Advisor

The bell above the door jingles, and flat amber eyes flick upwards.

They settle on the figure standing awkwardly in the door and pale lips purse minutely in displeasure.

“Mai—” the figure begins.

“Fire Lord,” Mai immediately interrupts.

The Fire Lord grimaces, and takes a step further into the room.

“I’m not the Fire Lord today,” he explains.

“That’s not something you get to decide,” she responds, returning her gaze to the already-perfectly-clean counter before her.

Zuko’s brow pinches, and he breathes sharply through his nose.

He takes a steadying breath and allows the door to clatter closed behind him.

“I’m sorry,” he says, slowly making his way to the counter.

He reaches for her hands where they lie on the counter, but she glances sharply up at him, and he stops. After a moment, he drops his hands on either side of hers, instead.

“Mai, I’m sorry.” He drops his head to meet her flat gaze. “Please come back.”

Her eyes narrow slightly, and Zuko’s face twists in pain. He raises a hand and fingers at the crest that is not in his hair before digging his fingers into his hair and raking it back.

“Where’s your guard?” Mai asks.

“ _Mai_ —” he pleads.

“Zuko, do _not_ tell me you were stupid enough to come here without a guard.”

He sighs, tossing his long hair back over his shoulders before nodding vaguely at a dark corner. A green figure emerges briefly from the darkness before vanishing again.

“A Dai Li?” she asks. “Really?”

Zuko makes an aggrieved noise, shrugging and raising his hands helplessly.

“I couldn’t come with the royal firebenders, could I?”

“If being protected by Dai Li is your alternative, you _should_ have.”

Zuko glances at the corner before glancing around the empty shop.

He nods cursorily at the corner before leaning forward towards Mai.

“Azula and I have—”

Mai’s makes a disbelieving noise.

“—come to an agreement.”

She opens her mouth, and Zuko scowls and cuts her off.

“Don’t give me shit about this, Mai.”

Mai gives him a sharp look and Zuko sighs and takes a step back.

He turns to face the door, and clenches and unclenches his fist beside him.

“You know her better than anyone—you of all people should understand.”

There is a long moment of silence before Mai turns her gaze to her hands and taps them idly across the glass counter before her.

“Yeah,” she says to her hands. “Yeah, okay.”

Zuko turns back towards her, and she raises her eyes to meet his.

He opens and closes his mouth and glances around the shop.

“ _Mai_ ,” he says.

His face tightens in pain.

“Mai, I need you, _please_.”

Mai’s lips press into a thin line, and she looks away.

“I can’t do this without you, please come back.”

He takes three swifts steps forward and reaches for her hands again.

This time, she allows him to take them, turning to stare dispassionately back up into his eyes.

He leans forward, pulling her hands up to his face and pressing his dry lips against them.

“Zuko—” she begins, her smooth forehead finally crinkling as her brows twitch together. “Zuko, I _can’t_.” She disentangles her hands, sliding them into her open sleeves. “Zuko, I can’t go through that again.”

Zuko’s gaze drops to the line where her sleeves meet.

“Do you still carry your knives, Mai?”

Mai gives him a sharp look, and he shakes his head.

“No, I’m sorry, that’s not what I wanted to say.” He raises a hand to his forehead and kneads it lightly. “Look—”

He drops his hand and waves it around him.

“You’re so much better than this, Mai.”

Mai glances around for a moment before returning her gaze to him.

“That’s not your decision to make.”

Zuko makes another aggrieved noise, throwing his hands up into the air.

“Yes,” he finally says. “Fine.”

He returns his hands to the counter, and leans against it.

Mai stares up at him, amber eyes blank.

“If you won’t come back as my wife, or as my fiance, or sa my lover,” he says, “then come back as my advisor.”

Mai’s eyes widen briefly in surprise.

“I need you—I need an advisor I can _trust_.”

He shakes his head.

“I can’t do this alone—I wasn’t made for diplomacy.”

He twitches a hand and it smokes.

“They’re eating me alive—everyone’s got their own agenda and I just—”

He sighs.

“I just. Can’t. Keep. Up.”

Mai stares blankly at his hand before turning her gaze back up to him.

“ _Please_ , Mai.”

Mai takes a deep breath in through her nose.

“Anything you want,” he says. “Anything you want, I’ll do it.”

Mai looks up into his eyes, and he looks down into hers.

She takes a step back, tossing a gaze up the staircase in the back.

“Anywhere I go,” she finally says, “Tom-Tom comes with me.”

Zuko’s face twists in confusion for a moment, but when Mai cuts him a glare he shakes his head—

“Of course. Any—”

“And if anything happens to me, then I want your word you will care for him as your own.”

Zuko freezes, mouth half-open, and Mai stares expressionlessly up at him.

“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” he answers automatically, but Mai just continues to stare blankly up at him.

“I want your _word_ , Zuko.”

Zuko closes his mouth, looking briefly down at his hands on the counter before raising his gaze to Mai’s.

“Yes,” he finally says down to them. He raises his gaze. “Yeah, I can do that.”

Mai’s lips press together in a thin line, and the room is oppresively for the long twenty-three seconds that pass before she finally nods.

“Then okay.” Her shoulders slump as the tension holding her body taught drain out of her. “I’ll go with you.”

Zuko lets out a choked laugh, slumping against the counter.

“Oh, thank Agni,” he coughs out, bowing his head to the counter.

Mai stares at the top of his head, her expression pained.

After a moment, she turns away from him, and pointing her gaze at the deepest, darkest corner of the flower shop.

“I’ll go get our things,” she says. “As soon as my aunt returns with Tom-Tom, we can leave immediately.”

Zuko jolts back up, looking to her in surprise.

Mai blinks at him once before turning away and making her way up the stairs.

Zuko stares blankly at her back before making a pained noise and dropping his forehead to the counter before him.

“Fuck,” he whispers, lightly banging his forehead against the counter.

“Fuck fuck fuck.”

 

Mai stops at the top of the stairs, and leans heavily against the wall beside her.

She stays there for a long moment, counting out her breaths, thinking all sorts of things she promised herself she would not ever think again—before pushing herself off the wall with a sigh, and slipping into the room before her.

She glances around the mostly-impeccable room, her gaze catching on the small toys strewn about the floor.

“Oh Tom-Tom,” she sighs. She walks over to them, and begins to gather them in her arms. “Now you’re never going to learn to put away your things.”

She sighs again, making her way over to a box in the corner and carefully setting the toys within it.

“Just like me, I suppose,” she continues to the box, placing the last action figure within it.

Her hand stays on it for a moment, lightly tracing the blue spirit mask on its face.

She closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath.

She opens them, retracts her hand, and takes to her feet.

“Okay,” she says to herself. She looks around the room, eyes stopping on a single painting in a plain wooden frame on the dresser in the corner.

She closes her eyes tightly, presses her lips together, and nods to herself.

“Okay.”

 

Ten minutes later, she calls out into empty air—

“I know you’re there.”

There is a moment of silence before a woman in green emerges from the shadows.

“Oh, that’s so creepy,” Mai mutters under her breath before pointing at the two bags on the ground, and ordering—

“Take these for me.”

All around her, the shelves are half-empty, with only the toy box in the corner completely full.

She moves her finger to point at it.

“Also, that.”

The woman stares expressionlessly at her, and Mai stares expressionlessly back.

After a long moment the woman dips her hat, her face falling into deep shadow.

“As you wish,” she complies.

Three more figures emerge from the shadows, pick up her bags—

“Wait—” Mai says holding up a hand.

The three Dai Li agents freeze, and Mai walks over to the toy box in the last one’s hands and digs through it for a moment.

She pulls out the small blue spirit figurine before gesturing for them to go once more.

They nod, and vanish out the window.

Mai grimaces faintly at their backs, and when she turns around, she is once again alone in the room.

She makes her way over to the dresser, and looks down at the lone picture frame standing upon it.

She reaches out and brushes her fingers carefully along it, her face twisted with pain.

After a moment, she pulls it open, slides the painting out from within it, and tucks it into the folds of her robe.

She then carefully puts the frame back together, and returns it, face down, to the dresser before her.

She picks the blue spirit action figure back up, and turns away.

The bell above the door downstairs rings, and she glances briefly down at the apron she is still wearing over her robe before exiting the room.

 

“You know, you look familiar,” Mai hears upon stepping out of the stairwell.

“Are you—”

An old woman stands imposingly across the counter from Zuko as he stands awkwardly behind it, apron poorly covering his loose not-quite-royal robes.

“Mori’s boy?”

“Um—”

“Mori doesn’t have a son, Ms. Wu,” Mai says, stepping out of the shadows and causing the both of them to jump.

“I thought you were being robbed,” Ms. Wu defends.

“Of course you did,” Mai responds drily, pushing Zuko out from behind the counter and holding the action figure out to him.

“Hold this for me.”

From within the depths of her sleeves, the silver gleam of polished metal shines, and Zuko stares dully at it as he nearly fumbles the action figure onto the ground.

Mai cuts him a sharp glare before turning back to the woman.

“What would you like today, Ms. Wu.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” the old woman hedges, staring around her with a dazed look on her face.

“How about this one,” Mai offers, grabbing an arrangement blindly from the counter beside her.

“Oh, yes,” the woman agrees. “This is wonderful.”

“I’m _ecstatic_.”

The old woman glances at her, and Mai stares expressionlessly back.

After the woman pays, Zuko offers Mai the action figure back and she takes it and turns away.

“Tom-Tom and Auntie Mura only went to the store,” she says to the empty room before her. “They should be back soon.”

“Right,” he says, taking a step back and leaning against a shelf.

It shifts under his weight, and he scrambles back up, clearing his throat and patting gently at the pots teetering within it.

Mai doesn’t turn back to look at him, her gaze focused on the figure within her hands.

“Tell me about the state of our great nation,” she finally says after a long moment of silence. “If you so want me to advise you upon it.”

“Well,” Zuko says, leaning back against the much more solid wall, waiting for a moment to make sure it’s steady, and then relaxing back against it. His eyes flick casually towards a shadowy corner, and he waits until he is met with a green-hatted nod before continuing.

He begins to list items off his fingers, beginning by extending his index finger.

“The Earth Kingdom is no longer threatening war, but their requests for reparations grow more egregious by the day.”

He unfurls his middle finger beside it.

“The Northern Water Tribe is undergoing a civil war they're pretending is a revolution, but both sides hate our guts. When it's all over, I suspect they will demand reparations or threaten war. My advisors are rather divided on which side we should support, if we should support either.”

He unfurls his ring finger, and taps it idly with his left index finger.

“The Southern Water Tribe is primarily being rebuilt with Fire Nation gold, but Katara’s influence has held their opinion of the Fire Nation fairly positive, _all things considered_. They currently prefer us to their Northern brethren, at the very least, which is a situation we would very much like to remain in.”

He pauses, leaning his head to the side, staring down at his ring finger.

“They prefer the revolutionaries in Northern—well, ‘revolution’—” he doesn't actually make the finger quotes, but Mai can hear them, regardless, “but they have yet to demand that we assist them. I very much hope they do not, because the unfortunate fact of the matter is that those revolutionaries very much want our blood.”

He pauses for a moment before tapping his pinky.

“Our lost colonies have begun to rather ostentatiously call themselves the United Republic of Nation, and Yudao is now Republic City.”

Zuko shrugs.

“They have opened their borders to immigration, and they have seen an extraordinary influx of skilled workers of all varieties, primarily from the Earth Kingdom. It’s causing a bit of friction, and I suspect Kuei will soon begin issuing injunctions that will be largely ineffective.”

He takes a breath, and Mai sets the blue spirit action figure carefully on the counter before her.

Outside the door, two passerby look at the closed sign on the door, frown at Mai, and then continuing walking by.

“We have a strong alliance with them, and we’re looking into loosening some of our export and import restrictions.” Zuko raises his gaze to the unmoving back of Mai’s head. “Although we can currently sustain ourselves, a single bad typhoon season and we’ll have people starving in the streets. Whatever surplus we once had is gone.”

He shrugs with one shoulder.

“Meanwhile, we have steel manufacturing facilities they won’t be able to match for a decade at the earliest. It could be good for the both of us.”

There is a silence between them.

“And internally?” Mai asks, voice still impeccably flat.

Zuko grimaces, and raises his gaze to the ceiling.

“We have rising unemployment, a lot of angry firebenders who know nothing but war, and we’re running our coffers dry trying to keep our stupidly huge armies fed.” He heaves a gusty sigh. “The New Ozai movement is not yet large enough to be anything more than an annoyance, but it gains members with every concession, and if it continues this way for another couple years, we could have serious trouble.”

Mai nods blankly at the door.

“And what do you need my help with?”

Zuko makes a pained face at her back, and and opens and closes his mouth ineffectually at her back for a couple moments before finally speaking—

“I have members of the New Ozai movement within my advisors, and although Azula is certain of who they are, we very much cannot go about dispatching them the way she would prefer.”

“They’ll never trust me,” Mai says neutrally. “I disbanded a splinter cell that was operating out of the next burrow.”

Zuko’s eyebrows raise in surprise.

“Really?”

“I am a _patriot_ , Zuko.”

Zuko grimaces.

“Just because I—”

“I’m sorry.”

Mai presses her lips together, but doesn’t protest further.

“We need your help. Azula is good at manipulating people, but she’s not politician—and neither am I.”

Mai slides a glance at Zuko out of the corner of her eye.

Zuko is staring out the window, and not looking back.

“We’re losing the populace by the day, and although Azula has the sitting military well in hand, ten percent of the population is firebenders. If we lose too much of this, the entire country will go up like a powderkeg.”

Mai grimaces, and slides her gaze back to the door before her.

“So you need me?”

“Of course I need you.”

Mai pauses for a half a breath before breathing heavily through her nose and continuing.

“You really think I can turn public favor?”

“You’ve done it before.”

Mai huffs out something that could almost be derisive snort.

“The New Ozai movement only started gaining traction when I started listening to my father and not to you.”

Mai shakes her head.

“You’re expecting too much, Zuko.”

She flicks a knife from her sleeve, and bisects a flower halfway across the flower shop.

“ _This_ is what I do.”

A shadow rustles nervously.

Zuko glances at it and shakes his head minutely before turning his gaze back Mai.

“You’re so much more than that, Mai.”

She snorts in way that could almost be considered elegant through her nose, and returns her hands to the counter.

“You’ve pardoned Azula,” she finally says. “The Earth King can’t be happy about that.”

“I didn’t pardon Azula, technically,” Zuko corrects before continuing, “but the Earth King can posture all he wants—he doesn’t want war any more than we do.

“And unless he’s planning on wiping us from the face of the map, a Fire Nation civil war doesn’t serve his interests either—he needs us rich and at his mercy.”

There’s a pause, and he continues absently—

“Azula free happens to work towards both of those—he’s certainly—”

“You didn’t pardon Azula?” Mai interrupts, turning to face him.

Zuko returns his gaze to her and sighs, turning his gaze down to his hands and shaking his head.

“It’s such a clusterfuck,” he mutters under his breath.

He raises his gaze back to Mai.

“Azula needs to never have been in prison.”

Mai gives him a disbelieving look, and he shakes his head.

“Azula never broke a Fire Nation law,” he finally says. “She very carefully stayed just within its bounds—so if Azula had been sent to prison, then—”

Mai’s eyes widen minutely.

“If Azula had been sent to prison, and kept there for a year and a half without trial—”

“Azula blackmailed you.”

Zuko sighs.

“She blackmailed me with far more than that. There’s more than enough leeway in our laws to make it incredibly easy for her to make my life very difficult.”

He grimaces before continuing.

“To say nothing of this—” he taps a brightly colored flower of the apron, over the scar he still carries over his heart, giving her a pained smile.

Mai very carefully does not look at it.

“You could have her killed.”

Zuko sighs.

“I could have, maybe, right after the war.” He raises his gaze to meet Mai’s. “But not now.” He shakes his head, gesturing at the shadow in the corner.

“She built up a base of power while she was supposed to be in prison. When she came to me two months ago, killing her would have started a civil war.”

“So you decided to make her—what?—the leader of our armies as a reward for her good behavior?”

Zuko raises his hands helplessly.

“What else was I _supposed_ to do?”

He pushes himself off of the wall, and stares down at her.

“If I trust her, she might betray me, and if she betrays me, we might have a civil war. But if I had tried to keep her in prison—if I had tried to kill her or have the avatar take away her bending—then we would have had a civil war for sure.”

Mai blinks once in acquiescence before sighing.

“I’m surprised she didn’t go for the throne.”

“Yes, well. I am also not without my allies. Azula’s smart enough to know that in the current political climate, she would never be able to sit upon our throne.

He smiles.

“The avatar would never allow it.”

Mai’s lips tighten at the mention of the avatar.

“And the avatar,” she asks, “Where is he?”

“He helps where he can,” Zuko responds. “His air acolytes have thankfully not yet asked anything of us. Let us pray that that continues to be the case.”

Mai’s nostrils flare, and she turns back to the door.

Beyond it, an old woman and a young boy are scurrying their way towards the shop.

“Wherever I am, Zuko,” she says to the door. “He is not welcome.”

Zuko’s eyebrows raise in surprise.

“None of them are,” she continues, making her way around the counter just as the boy bursts in and flings himself into her arms.

“Mai?”

She doesn’t respond, curling her arms around Tom-Tom as he wraps his arms and legs tightly around her.

“Mai!” Tom-Tom cries out happily at the sound of her name.

“Welcome back, Tom-Tom,” Mai says softly into his hair, turning back to Zuko.

“Why did you close the shop, Mai,” the old woman says as she enters the shop. “Did you just not want to—”

The woman freezes in place when her eyes fall upon Zuko.

“F-Fire Lord,” she says, rushing to bow.

“No—”, he interrupts her, waving his hands. “It’s fine, stop—”

She doesn’t stop.

(Tom-Tom whispers a garbled approximation of “Fire Lord” into Mai’s ear and stares at Zuko with big eyes.)

(Mai shakes her head and he settles back against her.)

Zuko sighs.

“Please rise, Ms. Mura.”

The woman does so, but keeps her head bowed.

“I’m returning to the palace, Auntie,” Mai tells her. “The Fire Lord has been gracious enough to offer me a position as his _advisor_.”

Zuko flinches.

Mura slides a glance at her niece, who stares dispassionately back at her.

“Your par—”

She pauses, closing her mouth before opening it again.

“I’m so proud.”

“Thank you, Auntie Mura. I won’t forget what you’ve done for me.”

She crosses the room quickly, leaning over the counter.

“Get your toy, Tom-Tom,” she whispers, and he does, grasping blindly for it with uncoordinated fingers, almost knocking it to the floor but catching it just before it topples over the edge.

“If you need any more assistance at the shop, I’m sure I can procure it for you.”

Mura slides another glance at Zuko before glancing back at her niece.

“I’ll uh—” Zuko gestures at the door, “show myself out.”

He beckons at the shadow in the far corner as he passes it, giving Mura’s demure bow one final awkward nod before vanishing out the door.

“Well, uh—” Mura glances around the now empty,flower shop, her gaze sticking on Mai’s knife sticking out of the far wall before settling back on Mai. “This is sudden.”

Mai shrugs, crossing the room to slip the blade out of the wall and slide it back into her sleeve.

“You can come visit, if you want,” Mai offers, turning back to her.

Mura makes a face.

“Maybe you could come visit me?”

Mai blinks once.

There’s a pause.

“Okay.”

Mura smiles.

Mai doesn’t.

“Well—if you ever need flowers,” Mura offers with a strained laugh.

“Yes,” Mai agrees, walking back over to her.

“Where are we going?” Tom-Tom asks, pushing himself off of Mai’s shoulder to stare at her with big round eyes.

“We’re going to go live in a palace,” she says with an expression that is almost a smile. “Doesn’t that sound fun.” She doesn't quite manage the intonation to make it a question, but Tom-Tom nods anyway.

“Good. Say goodbye to your Auntie Mura.”

He turns in Mai’s arm to latch awkwardly onto Mura’s neck.

“Goodbye Auntie Mura,” he says thickly. “You’re gonna come visit us, right?”

Mura smiles a strained, forced, smile.

“Of course,” she finally manages. “And you’re going to come visit me, right?”

Tom-Tom turns to look at Mai with a quivering lip.

“Of course we are, Tom-Tom,” she says flatly, patting him sharply on the back.

He grins brilliantly and flops back onto Mai.

Mai gives her aunt one last twitch of her lips before turning and walking stiffly out of the flower shop.

She flips the sign to open with a twitch of her wrist, and Tom-Tom calls goodbye from over her shoulder.

“Bye Auntie Mura!”

Auntie Mura smiles weakly at him.

“Goodbye.”

Then the door clicks closed, the bell rings, and they’re gone.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time, this was intended to be a much longer, extended fic that revolved around the tensions and relationships between Mai, Zuko, and Azula in the aftermath of the war, with all of them free and (mostly) not at each other's throats, but I was never able to write much more of it than this introduction, and (I think) it stands fairly well on its own, so I decided to publish just this first chapter. I hope you enjoyed it.


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